Last Week:

I Don’t Want To!

This Week:

Surely There’s Someone Better!

Exodus 3:1–10 1 Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his

father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 There

the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that

though the bush was on fire it did not burn up.

Exodus 3:1–10 3 So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not

burn up.” 4 When the Lord saw that he had gone over

to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!”

And Moses said, “Here I am.”

Exodus 3:1–10 5 “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” 6 Then he said, “I

am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of

Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.

Exodus 3:1–10 7 The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my

people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their

suffering. 8 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of

that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites.

Exodus 3:1–10 9 And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. 10 So now, go. I am sending you to

Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”

Exodus 3:11 But Moses said to God,

“Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

Excuse #1

I am no one.

Exodus 2:11–12 11 One day, after Moses had grown up, he

went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. 12 Looking this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and

hid him in the sand.

Excuse #2

I don’t know enough.

Exodus 3:13 Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his

name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”

Excuse #3

No one will follow me.

Exodus 4:1 Moses answered, “What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, ‘The

Lord did not appear to you’?”

Excuse #4

I don’t have the skills.

Exodus 4:10 Moses said to the Lord, “Pardon your

servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am

slow of speech and tongue.”

Conclusion:

Surely there’s someone better!

Exodus 4:13 But Moses said, “Pardon

your servant, Lord. Please send someone else.”

Overcoming the Excuses 1. I am no one

Exodus 3:12a And God said, “I will be with you.

Overcoming the Excuses 2. I don’t know enough

Exodus 3:14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am.

This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’ ”

Overcoming the Excuses 3. No one will follow me

Exodus 4:5 “This,” said the Lord, “is so that they may

believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and

the God of Jacob—has appeared to you.”

Overcoming the Excuses 4. I don’t have the skills

Exodus 4:11–12 11 The Lord said to him, “Who gave human

beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them

blind? Is it not I, the Lord? 12 Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.”